[wisbad1]

Originally Posted by Debfrommaine

Agree, not just The Villages, all over the country.

Good thing about old age, it doesn’t last long!

[Bilyclub]

Originally Posted by NoMo50

No need to throw shade at the developer, as this problem is occurring all over the country. Our daughter is a nurse practitioner, working at a large teaching hospital "up north." They have had staffing issues for years, and it's only getting worse. Covid sure didn't help. Plus, many young people today are rethinking the prospect of getting into the health provider profession. The prospect of going to school for 10 years, amassing huge amounts of debt, and entering a field where you are not in control over what your "product" is worth has cast a lot of doubt on their prospects for the future.

I recently had an outpatient procedure done on a knee at a local Orthopedics office. The bill for that procedure exceeded $4,000. With Medicare and secondary insurance payments all in, the doctor's net was less than 600 bucks. Again, this is something going on all over the country...not just here in the bubble.

Maybe not some much shade, but lack of updated information about the medical facilities they were going to build down South. Seems to be anything that would negatively affect new home sales doesn't see the light of day. I remember when they used the southern hospital as a pawn in the whole impact fee fiasco.

UF Health details plans for growth, new hospital | News | The Villages Daily Sun | thevillagesdailysun.com

[RiderOnTheStorm]

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I try to make it a point to stay up-to-date on the status of healthcare here in The Villages by asking my doctors or other healthcare providers.

Today I asked one of my doctors.about the status of the announced plan to make The Villages Regional Hospital a teaching hospital, training 24 new residents per year, beginning in 2024. It turns out that plan has been either tabled or scrapped altogether. UF Health has been unable to attract enough doctors and nurses to the area to operate the hospital, let alone train residents. They have had an ongoing national recruiting campaign for over a year, with almost no results. The responses to the recruiting campaign has been that younger doctors and those with school-age families don’t want to relocate to central Florida or The Villages.

But the biggest news from the docs was that UFHealth has withdrawn from the partnership with The Villages developer to build a larger teaching hospital in the south end of The Villages. It’s obvious that if the existing hospitals can’t be properly staffed, it would make little sense to build another even larger hospital in the same service area. The developer has begun to approach national chains to build the new hospital. But the national chains are likely to be aware of potential problems attracting enough doctors and nurses to staff a larger, new hospital.

I was left wondering, if UFHealth can’t properly staff The Villages Regional Hospital, how much longer will they remained committed to it’s ownership?

Don’t ever expect to read any of this in The Villages Daily Sun. Ask your doctors!

In addition to a general workforce shortage, efforts by healthcare providers to reduce the cost of healthcare is driving care down to the lowest (seemingly) qualified level. Rather than see MDs patients are now being routed to Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Licensed Practical Nurses, etc. Hospital Residents are paid much less than MDs and having a lot of them around would seem to be yet another cost cutting move. Stay tuned; ideas are hard to put down where there is money to be saved, quality of care be damned.

[Villages Kahuna]

The plan to make TVRH a teaching hospital training new doctors was announced in The Daily Sun over a year ago.

My original post in this tread was not an attempt to throw shade at the Developer. It was UFHealth which withdrew it’s support of the new, larger teaching hospital, not the Developer.

I agree with other posters here—the healthcare problem in the U.S. is getting worse. It can’t improve until we begin training enough new doctors to replace those leaving the profession. Last year 114,000 doctors retired or left practice for other reasons. But U.S. medical schools only graduated something like 76,000 new doctors. The shortfall will have to be made up by doctors trained in foreign medical schools who choose to emigrate to the U.S..

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by Bilyclub

Maybe not some much shade, but lack of updated information about the medical facilities they were going to build down South. Seems to be anything that would negatively affect new home sales doesn't see the light of day. I remember when they used the southern hospital as a pawn in the whole impact fee fiasco.

UF Health details plans for growth, new hospital | News | The Villages Daily Sun | thevillagesdailysun.com

I do not think we are supposed to remember that about the southern hospital.

[Gwenjap]

Originally Posted by rjm1cc

I think the trend is a shortage in a lot of the professions.

Agree!

[thelegges]

During Covid many health care workers hours were drastically cut, or were furloughed. Many decided when they were called back, retired instead.

At my old facility, of 125 in the pre/post op and OR, 31 highly experienced MD’s, MDA’s, PA’s NP’s, and CRNA’s choose to retire. It’s hard for facilities to come back from such a mass exodus.

[Quixote]

How ignorant to describe UF Health The Villages Hospital as ‘not real.’ No, it’s not the Cleveland Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston), Mount Sinai Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center (New York City), Mayo Clinic (Rochester MN and other locations); by comparison it’s a small local hospital where I recently took my son for emergency surgery, and the care he received was outstanding.

The elephant in the room is largely unaddressed in this thread; I refer to the insurance industry that has a huge bearing on US medical care. Up north I had two specialists in completely unrelated areas who had both joined existing practices and eventually became the senior members as the older doctors retired.

The one hated so much what was happening with the insurance dictates and controls in the medical field that he convinced his daughter not to become a physician (meaning one doctor less); instead, she went to veterinary college, thus remaining in medical care; and he himself retired early. Before doing so, he had joined his practice with that of the other unrelated specialist to create a corporate structure. I asked both why, and both gave the same answer: to have at least the illusion of having some power and control, since insurance dictates prevented them from practicing medicine as they had been trained. Sad.

Why can one buy the same Eliquis made by Pfizer from a Canadian mail-order pharmacy, where a three-month supply costs as little as $78 plus $10 shipping, while to use our Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plan one would have to pay over $400? Check it out yourself at Drug Price Comparisons & Online Pharmacy Safety | PharmacyChecker.com. One need only to look at how—and when—Part D was created to realize that it’s a great bonanza—to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries—not especially to seniors.

I’m a dual citizen (US/Canada), and over the years I’ve heard Americans bash the Canadian system of universal health care by citing the waiting periods some have to endure. My Canadian relatives could certainly have afforded to buy private insurance to supplement their provincial plans, but none felt the need to. Many Americans have no understanding of the meaning of ‘triage’—treatment based on urgency rather than time of arrival. Our hospital emergency facilities are treated as primary care by those who are uninsured, and while perhaps an exaggeration (or perhaps not…), it’s been asked in ER waiting rooms (likely not in these words): ‘Why is that possible stroke victim who just arrived being taken ahead of me when I’ve been here for hours with this sprained ankle?’ Am I exaggerating?...

[joelfmi]

Not a good policy for people to settle there.

[RedChariot]

Originally Posted by JGibson

The Villages Health is also having trouble with getting doctors and the ones they get never seem to stay.
TVH is like a stepping stone for healthcare workers.

I know hospitals that closed up north because the number of people they were treating had no insurance or were not eligible for Medicaid.

Forgot the Daily Sun no media discusses the healthcare shortage we have in America.

I recently spoke to a young physician at The Villages Health. All the seniors here in TV do the happy dance. You see this as Nirvana. But think of a doctor and his family coming to live in Central Florida. Just think about it. I don't want to be derogatory about this area. There is not a lot for them in our surrounding area. The only plus is the Charter school. Certainly minimal cultural events. He has spent many years and a huge sum of money to end up here? I wonder what picture was painted to attract him here.
Regarding the nursing shortage. I was a Cerified Critical Care Registered Nurse in NJ. I rose through the ranks and was eventually promoted. I was in Nursing Administration for years. There has always been a nursing shortage, but Florida was always worse. Low, low wages, high patient assignments, poorly trained ancillary staff. In 1987 our hospital went to the Philippines and recruited Registered Nurses. Offered them housing, good pay. They had to be fluent in English both spoken and written. It took dedication from everyone for this transition to be successful. And it was. The Philippine nurses saved the nursing profession on the east coast of the USA beginning in 1987.
The powers that be at TVRH need to step up and think out of the box.

[Matt.Roberts]

To echo what others have said: the inability to attract and retain medical professionals is a national problem. I work (remotely) for a major university in the Midwest and staffing for our teaching hospital has become increasingly difficult, despite being in a major metro area and offering a variety of bonuses and pay increases.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I try to make it a point to stay up-to-date on the status of healthcare here in The Villages by asking my doctors or other healthcare providers.

Today I asked one of my doctors.about the status of the announced plan to make The Villages Regional Hospital a teaching hospital, training 24 new residents per year, beginning in 2024. It turns out that plan has been either tabled or scrapped altogether. UF Health has been unable to attract enough doctors and nurses to the area to operate the hospital, let alone train residents. They have had an ongoing national recruiting campaign for over a year, with almost no results. The responses to the recruiting campaign has been that younger doctors and those with school-age families don’t want to relocate to central Florida or The Villages.

But the biggest news from the docs was that UFHealth has withdrawn from the partnership with The Villages developer to build a larger teaching hospital in the south end of The Villages. It’s obvious that if the existing hospitals can’t be properly staffed, it would make little sense to build another even larger hospital in the same service area. The developer has begun to approach national chains to build the new hospital. But the national chains are likely to be aware of potential problems attracting enough doctors and nurses to staff a larger, new hospital.

I was left wondering, if UFHealth can’t properly staff The Villages Regional Hospital, how much longer will they remain committed to it’s ownership?

Don’t ever expect to read any of this in The Villages Daily Sun. Ask your doctors!

The WHOLE HEALTHCARE problem could be easily solved by National Health Care like all the OTHER CIVILIZED countries in Europe and Asia. But, then the POOR Insurance executives would be forced to live in poverty........at a lowly $300,000 per year

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by NoMo50

No need to throw shade at the developer, as this problem is occurring all over the country. Our daughter is a nurse practitioner, working at a large teaching hospital "up north." They have had staffing issues for years, and it's only getting worse. Covid sure didn't help. Plus, many young people today are rethinking the prospect of getting into the health provider profession. The prospect of going to school for 10 years, amassing huge amounts of debt, and entering a field where you are not in control over what your "product" is worth has cast a lot of doubt on their prospects for the future.

I recently had an outpatient procedure done on a knee at a local Orthopedics office. The bill for that procedure exceeded $4,000. With Medicare and secondary insurance payments all in, the doctor's net was less than 600 bucks. Again, this is something going on all over the country...not just here in the bubble.

Yes, yes, yes - 10 years of tough University training and a Doctor becomes a worker-bee SLAVE like in the middle ages. Slaves to the Insurance Companies' GREEDY EXECUTIVES. That IS why the US needs National Health Care just like the REAL non-GREEDY countries of the world.
.........The US pays the MOST in the world for Health Care and the results are ludicrous......we are in the bottom half for RESULTS / OUTCOMES for 1st world countries !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those statistics speak volumes for THEMSELVES.
........It seems like countries get the Health Care that they deserve.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by mlmarr

Hospital being built in the south end by the turnpike will be larger , plus housing near by.. teaching will come..but first America needs to educate the children to want to..
Better yet.. keep yourself healthy..

Primary education where I came from (up North) was 1st class back in the (literally) old school days. I had a GREAT Physics teacher, geometry teacher, advanced math, and a Spanish teacher in High School. We did NOT have to go to a Private school to get a good education. In fact, they did NOT even exist - only a Catholic high school which was OK quality-wise.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Bridget Eichaker

I was told they are not allowing nurses from the Philippines to come to the US but people can walk across the Southern border. We could get nurses from Asia & they are great in their profession Why?

Maybe overcrowding, too many people for the existing infrastructure and resources. Why NOT have the US make up its mind and get a REAL Health Care System (like other countries) that PAYS Doctors and healthcare staff better and encourage people to enter those fields - the money is draining away to the Insurance CEOs (blood -sucking SQUIDS) - and the best of the best College graduates are orbiting toward BUSINESS, where the big-BUCKS are made. Society IS getting the Health Care that they DESERVE !